Greetings from the tiny village of bois-le-roi france, where i am visiting my mother in law. She has no internet acess or even a computer, so I am attempting this post with my blackberry (thank god there is cellular coverage here or I’d be cut off from the outside world). FAST TRACK wrapped on Sunday (the day was spent on second unit and insert work). The wrap party went into the wee hours of Monday morning and then I hit the road to France with my family. We stopped in Heidelburg, Nuremburg, and Strasbourg among other places along the way. It was nice, but I was exhausted. I have been sleeping a lot the last few days (about 10 hours a night!) and going on long walks, thinking about the next monk book. I am trying to relax a bit but it is taking some effort. I am eager to get in the editing room..but I have to wait for the director’s cut first. I haven’t read a book in ages, so once the monk outline is done, that’s next on my to-do list.
Me Me Me
Soho Noir
Someone just sent me this link to a Q&A interview I did some time ago with Soho Noir. I missed it when it originally went online. Here’s an excerpt:
What inspires your writing, where do your ideas come from?
When I was a kid, what inspired me was the sheer pleasure of writing and living in my dreams. Now my inspiration is equally driven by fear…the terror of not being able to pay my bills. My ideas can come from anywhere…an article in the newspaper, an overheard conversation, a "what-if" thought while driving in my car, a life experience. I never seem to be at a loss for ideas…it’s the details that kill me.
Novelist, scriptwriter, producer, you have been very successful at all three, and we are interested to know if you have a preference. If you had to choose between the three which one would it be?
If I could make the same amount of money writing books as I do from writing/producing TV shows, I could see walking away from screenwriting. I love TV, but the politics you have to deal with and the games you have to play can be exhausting and infuriating. On the other hand, being a novelist is a solitary pursuit and in television, you’re surrounded by enormously creative people and it’s inspiring.
There is a lot of fun in your work, is it difficult mixing crime with humour and why put the two together?
I can’t imagine writing anything without humor. There’s always something funny in every situation, it’s the balance that’s hard. But I find that humor is often what humanizes a character and makes the unbelievable believable.
Jack Webb’s Star
Publisher’s Weekly singled out my short story "Jack Webb’s Star" in their review of the upcoming anthology HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME:
The 14 stories in this entertaining anthology from Shamus
Award–founder Randisi span Tinsel Town history from the 1930s to the
present and intersect, literally, at Hollywood and Vine. Top billing should go to Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch
story, "Suicide Run," and to Lee Goldberg’s "Jack Webb’s Star"—the
former for the detection and the latter for biggest laughs. Other
highlights include Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens’s
reinvention of one of the Three Stooges, Moe Howard, as a detective in
their clever "Murderlized," about the 1937 death of the Stooges’
mentor, vaudevillian Ted Healy. Robert S. Levinson delivers a wicked
portrait of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper in "And the Winner Is…,"
which turns on her lackey’s efforts to stop a Nazi sharpshooter at the
1960 Academy Awards. From Harry Bosch’s visit to a photographer at Hollywood & Vine Studios to Moe’s meeting at a coffee shop at that intersection, all the tales pay homage to the storied Hollywood street corner. (June)
Me on TV…again
I’m back again as a guest on Steve Murphy’s INSIDER EXCLUSIVE with NY criminal defense attorney Laura Miranda. I come in about mid-way through the episode to talk about MONK, DIAGNOSIS MURDER and my daughter’s literary aspirations. And stick around after he says good-bye to me…because I come right back, teaming with Laura.
And if you missed me on INSIDER EXCLUSIVE with famed criminal defense attorney Tom Mesereau, you can see it here.
More of Me
There’s a Q&A interview with me up at Poes Deadly Daughters.
Me on TV
You can catch me and criminal defense attorney Thomas Mesereau together on the latest episode of INSIDER EXCLUSIVE with Steve Murphy on the web and on a cable station near you. Steve is a congenial interviewer and, although he makes a couple errors (he calls me the "creator and host" of MONK on the "USA Today" network), it was a lot of fun to be a guest and I think you’ll enjoy watching. I taped as second episode that day, with another criminal defense attorney, and will share that link with you as soon as I get it.
Fast Track
One of the reasons I have been jetting back-and-forth to Europe a lot lately is because I’m writing and producing a two-hour movie/pilot for Action Concept that will be shot in Berlin in May for broadcast on ProSieben (a big German network) and worldwide in international syndication. I’ve waited until we got the firm greenlight before sharing the news with you (I’m superstitious that way).
The project is called FAST TRACK and is about urban street racing (yes, I’m being intentionally vague). The movie will be packed with amazing, street-racing action (check out the Action Concept website to see what these guys can do!) and shot entirely in English. The leading roles are being cast in Los Angeles by Burrows/Boland, who did LORD OF THE RINGS, KING KONG, CAST AWAY, 21 JUMP STREET, CONTACT, A-TEAM, DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MARTIAL LAW, to name a few.
I’ll bring you reports from the set as production moves along.
Not Guilty
I’m heading off to Burbank this morning to tape two episodes of the TV show INSIDER EXCLUSIVE, hosted by Steve Murphy. I’m going to be on with famed criminal defense attorney Thomas Messerau. It seems like an odd-pairing to me. I feel like I should say that I am not guilty and let him do all the talking. Past authors on Steve’s show include Michael Connelly, Danielle Steele, Linda Fairstein, Joseph Wambaugh, David Baldacci, Scott Turow and Jonathan Kellerman, so I am in good company. A few weeks back, I was a guest on Steve’s syndicated radio show and had a great time, so I’m sure things will work out.
Inside The Writers Room
Writer/producer Matt Witten talks with Deutsche Welle about the Media Exchange "Writers Room" seminars I’ve been doing with Action Concept in Germany. Matt sums it up pretty nicely:
American shows tend to be pretty fast-paced and vigorously structured,
and the way we structure the action and the conflict for our main
characters has been thought through in ways that are fresh for German
writers, they haven’t necessarily heard it described in these terms. So
it gives them a new way of looking at the writing they’re doing. They
were also intrigued by the fact that in America we have staff writers
who meet every day, and we have a head writer responsible for the
consistency of the show — "the show-runner." These concepts are new in
Germany, where there is no cohesion of writing staff. Instead, episodes
are written by freelancers who turn in maybe just two a year. Another
thing in American TV is that directors don’t have the power to change
the script without talking to the writer.
Woe is Me
Sorry I haven’t been around — jet-lag and technology woes have worked against me. Two days before I left for Europe, my desktop computer crashed. While I was away, my wife reported that my wireless home network crumbled, my Tivo locked up, and the brakes on my car failed. The day I got home, the power adapter for my laptop burned out (better then than on the trip!) and my wife’s laptop belly-flopped. I have spent the last few days fixing all of that…and myself, too (I really got nailed by jet-lag). And yesterday was my birthday, so I took a day off to rest up.
I have since ordered a new desktop computer, a new laptop for my wife, a new power cord for my laptop, reset my router (and added Range Expander to the system), and took my car into the shop. Everything should be humming along again in the next few days. I’m even beginning to feel like myself again. But the price-tag for all of those repairs/purchases is going to be pretty steep. I’d better get to work!
Today I met with the casting director on a new movie/pilot I am working on, paid bills, sorted through the accumulated mail (email and snail-mail), read two scripts for proposed Action Concept projects, and took a ton of clothes into the dry cleaner. Exciting, huh?
Which has left me with nothing really to say for the blog. I’ll be back soon, I’m sure.